Shōgun (The Asian Saga Book 1)

The attack on the Browns’ stronghold began in the darkest reaches of the night, two or three hours before dawn.  The first wave of ten ninja—the infamous Stealthy Ones—came over the roofs of the battlements opposite, now unguarded by Grays.  They threw cloth-covered grappling hooks on ropes over to the other roof and swung across the chasm like so many spiders.  They wore tight-fitting clothes of black and black tabi and black masks.  Their hands and faces were also blackened.  These men were lightly armed with chain knives and shuriken—small, star-shaped, needle-sharp, poison-tipped throwing barbs and discs that were the size of a man’s palm.  On their backs were slung haversacks and short thin poles.

Ninja were mercenaries.  They were artists in stealth, specialists in the disreputable—in espionage, infiltration, and sudden death.

The ten men landed noiselessly.  They re-coiled the grapples, and four of them hooked the grapples again onto a projection and immediately swung downward to a veranda twenty feet below.  Once they had reached it, as noiselessly, their comrades unhooked the grapples, dropped them down, and moved across the tiles to infiltrate another area.

A tile cracked under one man’s foot and they all froze.  In the forecourt, three stories and sixty feet below, Sumiyori stopped on his rounds and looked up.  His eyes squinted into the darkness.  He waited without moving, his mouth open a fraction to improve his hearing, his eyes sweeping slowly.  The roof with the ninja was in shadow, the moon faint, the stars heavy in the thick humid air.  The men stayed absolutely still, even their breathing controlled and imperceptible, seemingly as inanimate as the tiles upon which they stood.

Sumiyori made another circuit with his eyes and with his ears, and then another, and, still not sure, he walked out into the forecourt to see more clearly.  Now the four ninja on the veranda were also within his field of vision but they were as motionless as the others and he did not notice them either.

‘Hey,’ he called to the guards on the gateway, the doors tight barred now, ‘you see anything—hear anything?’

‘No, Captain,’ the alert sentries said.  ‘The roof tiles are always chattering, shifting a bit—it’s the damp or the heat, perhaps.’

Sumiyori said to one of them, ‘Go up there and have a look.  Better still, tell the top-floor guards to make a search just in case.’

The soldier hurried off.  Sumiyori stared up again, then half shrugged and, reassured, continued his patrol.  The other samurai went back to their posts, watching outward.

On the rooftop and on the veranda the ninja waited in their frozen positions.  Not even their eyes moved.  They were schooled to remain immobile for hours if need be—just one part of their perpetual training.  Then the leader motioned to them and at once they again moved to the attack.  Their grapples and ropes took them quietly to another veranda where they could slide through the narrow windows in the granite walls.  Below this top floor, all other windows—defense positions for bowmen—were so narrow that they could not be entered from outside.  At another signal the two groups entered simultaneously.

Both rooms were in darkness, with ten Browns sleeping in neat lines.  They were put to death quickly and almost noiselessly, a single knife thrust in the throat for most, the raiders’ trained senses taking them unerringly to their targets, and in moments the last of the Browns was thrashing desperately, his warning shout garroted just as it had begun.  Then, the rooms secured, the doors secured, the leader took out a flint and tinder and lit a candle and carried it, cupped carefully, to the window and signaled three times into the night.  Behind him his men were making doubly sure that every Brown was quite dead.  The leader repeated the signal, then came away from the window and motioned with his hand, speaking to them in sign language with his fingers.

At once the raiders undid their haversacks and readied their attack weapons—short, sickle-shaped, double-edged knives with a chain attached to the haft, weighted at the end of the chain, and shuriken and throwing knives.  At another order, selected men unsheathed the short poles.  These were telescoped spears and blow pipes that sprang into full length with startling speed.  And as each man completed his preparations he knelt, settled himself facing the door, and, seemingly without conscious effort, became totally motionless.  Now the last man was ready.  The leader blew out the candle.

When the city bells toned the middle of the Hour of the Tiger—four of the clock, an hour before dawn—the second wave of ninja infiltrated.  Twenty slid silently out of a large, disused culvert that once had serviced the rivulets of the garden.  All these men wore swords.  Like so many shadows, they swarmed into position among the shrubs and bushes, became motionless and almost invisible.  At the same time another group of twenty came up from the ground by ropes and grapples to attack the battlement that overlooked the forecourt and garden.

Two Browns were on the battlements, carefully watching the empty roofs across the avenue.  Then one of the Browns glanced around and saw the grapples behind them and he began to point in alarm.  His comrade opened his mouth to shout a warning when the first ninja made the embrasure and, with a whipping snap of his wrist, sent a barbed shuriken whirling into this samurai’s face and mouth, hideously strangling the shout, and hurled himself forward at the other samurai, his outstretched hand now a lethal weapon, the thumb and forefinger extended, and he stabbed for the jugular.  The impact paralyzed the samurai, another vicious blow broke his neck with a dry crack, and the ninja jumped at the first agonized samurai, who was clawing at the barbs embedded deeply in his mouth and face, the poison already working.

With a final supreme effort, the dying samurai ripped out his short stabbing sword and struck.  His blow sliced deep and the ninja gasped but this did not stop the rush and his hand slammed into the Brown’s throat, snapping the man’s head back and dislocating his spine.  The samurai was dead on his feet.

The ninja was bleeding badly but he made no sound and still held onto the dead Brown, lowering him carefully to the stone flags, sinking to his knees beside him.  All the ninja had climbed up the ropes now and stood on the battlement.  They bypassed their wounded comrade until the battlement was secured.  The wounded man was still on his knees beside the dead Browns, holding his side.  The leader examined the wound.  Blood was spurting in a steady stream.  He shook his head and spoke with his fingers and the man nodded and dragged himself painfully to a corner, the blood leaving a wide trail.  He made himself comfortable, leaning against the stone, and took out a shuriken.  He scratched the back of one hand several times with the poison barbs, then found his stiletto, put the point at the base of his throat and, two-handed, with all his strength, he thrust upward.

The leader made sure this man was dead then went back to the fortified door that led inside.  He opened it cautiously.  At that moment they heard footsteps approaching and at once melted back into ambush position.

In the corridor of this, the west wing, Sumiyori was approaching with ten Browns.  He dropped two off near the battlement door and, not stopping, walked on.  These two reliefs went out on to the battlement as Sumiyori turned the far corner and went down a flight of circular steps.  At the bottom was another checkpoint and the two tired samurai bowed and were replaced.

‘Pick up the others and go back to your quarters.  You’ll be wakened at dawn,’ Sumiyori said.

‘Yes, Captain.’

The two samurai walked back up the steps, glad to be off duty.  Sumiyori continued on down the next corridor, replacing sentries.  At length he stopped outside a door and knocked, the last two guards with him.

‘Yabu-san?’

‘Yes?’  The voice was sleepy.

‘So sorry, it’s the change of the guard.’

‘Ah, thank you.  Please come in.’

Sumiyori opened the door but warily stayed on the threshold.  Yabu was touseled, propped in the coverlets on one elbow, his other hand on his sword.  When he was sure it was Sumiyori he relaxed and yawned.  ‘Anything new, Captain?’

Sumiyori relaxed also and shook his head, came in and closed the door.  The room was large and neat and another bed of futons was laid and turned back invitingly.  Arrow slit windows overlooked the avenue and city, a sheer drop of thirty feet below.  ‘Everything’s quiet.  She’s sleeping now. . . . At least her maid, Chimmoko, said she was.’  He went to the low bureau where an oil lamp spluttered and poured himself cold cha from a pot.  Beside it was their pass, formally stamped, that Yabu had brought back from Ishido’s office.

Yabu yawned again and stretched luxuriously.  ‘The Anjin-san?’

‘He was awake the last time I checked.  That was at midnight.  He asked me not to check again until just before dawn—something about his customs.  I didn’t understand clearly everything he said, but there’s no harm, there’s a very tight security everywhere, neh?  Kiritsubo-san and the other ladies are quiet, though she’s been up, Kiritsubo-san, most of the night.’

Yabu got out of bed.  He wore only a loincloth.  ‘Doing what?’

‘Just sitting at a window, staring out.  Nothing to see out there.  I suggested she’d better get some sleep.  She thanked me politely and agreed and stayed where she was.  Women, neh?‘

Yabu flexed his shoulders and elbows and scratched vigorously to get his blood flowing.  He began to dress.  ‘She should rest.  She’s got a long way to go today.’

Sumiyori set the cup down.  ‘I think it’s all a trick.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t think Ishido means it.’

‘We have signed permits.  There they are.  Every man’s listed.  You checked the names.  How can he go back on a public commitment to us or to Lady Toda?  Impossible, neh?‘

‘I don’t know.  Your pardon, Yabu-san, but I still think it’s a trick.’

Yabu knotted his sash slowly.  ‘What kind of trick?’

‘We’ll be ambushed.’

‘Outside the castle?’

Sumiyori nodded.  ‘Yes, that’s what I think.’

‘He wouldn’t dare.’

‘He’ll dare.  He’ll ambush us or delay us.  I can’t see him letting her go, or Lady Kiritsubo, or Lady Sazuko or the babe.  Even old Lady Etsu and the others.’

‘No, you’re wrong.’

Sumiyori shook his head sadly.  ‘I think it would’ve been better if she’d cut deep and you’d struck.  This way nothing’s resolved.’

Yabu picked up his swords and stuck them in his belt.  Yes, he was thinking, I agree with you.  Nothing’s resolved and she failed in her duty.  You know it, I know it, and so does Ishido.  Disgraceful!  If she’d cut, then we would have all lived forever.  As it is now . . . she came back from the brink and dishonored us and dishonored herself.  Shigata ga nai, neh?  Stupid woman!

But to Sumiyori he said, ‘I think you’re wrong.  She conquered Ishido.  Lady Toda won.  Ishido won’t dare to ambush us.  Go to sleep, I’ll wake you at dawn.’

Again Sumiyori shook his head.  ‘No, thank you, Yabu-san, I think I’ll go the rounds again.’  He went to a window and peered out.  ‘Something’s not right.’

‘Everything’s fine.  Get some—wait a moment!  What was that?  Did you hear something?’

Yabu came up to Sumiyori and pretended to search the darkness, listening intently, and then, without warning, he whipped out his short sword and with the same flashing, spontaneous movement, buried the blade into Sumiyori’s back, clapping his other hand over the man’s mouth to stop the shriek.  The captain died instantly.  Yabu held him carefully at arm’s length with immense strength so that none of the blood stained him, and carried the body over to the futons, arranging it in a sleeping position.  Then he pulled out his sword and began to clean it, furious that Sumiyori’s intuition had forced the unplanned killing.  Even so, Yabu thought, I can’t have him prowling around now.

Earlier, when Yabu was returning from Ishido’s office with their safe conduct pass, he had been waylaid privately by a samurai he had never seen before.

‘Your co-operation’s invited, Yabu-san.’

‘To what and by whom?’

‘By someone you made an offer to yesterday.’

‘What offer?’

‘In return for safe conducts for you and the Anjin-san, you’d see she was disarmed during the ambush on your journey. . . . Please don’t touch your sword, Yabu-san, there are four archers waiting for an invitation!’

‘How dare you challenge me?  What ambush?’ he had bluffed, feeling weak at the knees, for there was no doubt now that the man was Ishido’s intermediary.  Yesterday afternoon he had made the secret offer through his own intermediaries, in a desperate attempt to salvage something from the wreckage Mariko had caused to his plans for the Black Ship and the future.  At the time he had known that it was a wild idea.  It would have been difficult, if not impossible, to disarm her and stay alive, therefore fraught with danger to both sides, and when Ishido, through intermediaries, had turned it down he was not surprised.

‘I know nothing of any ambush,’ he had blustered, wishing that Yuriko were there to help him out of the morass.

‘Even so, you’re invited to one, though not the way you planned it.’

‘Who are you?’

‘In return you get Izu, the barbarian and his ship—the moment the chief enemy’s head is in the dust.  Providing, of course, she’s captured alive and you stay in Osaka until the day and swear allegiance.’

‘Whose head?’ Yabu had said, trying to get his brain working, realizing only now that Ishido had used the request for him to fetch the safe conducts merely as a ruse so the secret offer could be made safely and negotiated.

‘Is it yes or no?’ the samurai asked.

‘Who are you and what are you talking about?’  He had held up the scroll.  ‘Here’s Lord Ishido’s safe conduct.  Not even the Lord General can cancel these after what’s happened.’

‘That’s what many say.  But, so sorry, bullocks will shit gold dust before you or any are allowed to insult the Lord Yaemon. . . . Please take your hand away from your sword!’

‘Then watch your tongue!’

‘Of course, so sorry.  You agree?’

‘I’m overlord of Izu now, and promised Totomi and Suruga,’ Yabu had said, beginning to bargain.  He knew that though he was trapped, as Mariko was trapped, so equally was Ishido trapped, because the dilemma Mariko had precipitated still existed.

‘Yes, so you are,’ the samurai had said.  ‘But I’m not permitted to negotiate.  Those are the terms.  Is it yes or no? . . .’

Yabu finished cleaning his sword and arranged the sheet over the seemingly sleeping figure of Sumiyori.  Then he toweled the sweat off his face and hands, composed his rage, blew out the candle, and opened the door.  The two Browns were waiting some paces down the corridor.  They bowed.

‘I’ll wake you at dawn, Sumiyori-san,’ Yabu said to the darkness.  Then, to one of the samurai, ‘You stand guard here.  No one’s to go in.  No one!  Make sure the captain’s not disturbed—he needs rest.’

‘Yes, Sire.’

The samurai took up his new post and Yabu strode off down the corridor with the other guard, went up a flight of steps to the main central section of this floor and crossed it, heading for the audience room and inner apartments that were in the east wing.  Soon he came to the cul-de-sac corridor of the audience room.  Guards bowed and allowed him to enter.  Other samurai opened the door to the corridor and complex of private quarters.  He knocked at a door.

‘Anjin-san?’ he said quietly.

There was no answer.  He pulled the shoji open.  The room was empty, the inner shoji ajar.  He frowned, then motioned to his accompanying guard to wait, and hurried across the room into the dimly lit inner corridor.  Chimmoko intercepted him, a knife in her hand.  Her rumpled bed was in this passageway outside one of the rooms.

‘Oh, so sorry, Sire, I was dozing,’ she said apologetically, lowering her knife.  But she did not move out of his path.

‘I was looking for the Anjin-san.’

‘He and my Mistress are talking, Sire, with Kiritsubo-san and the Lady Achiko.’

‘Please ask him if I could see him a moment.’

‘Certainly, Sire.’  Chimmoko politely motioned Yabu back into the other room, waited until he was there, and pulled the inner shoji closed.  The guard in the main corridor watched inquisitively.

In a moment the shoji opened again and Blackthorne came in.  He was dressed and wore a short sword.

‘Good evening, Yabu-san,’ he said.

‘So sorry to disturb you, Anjin-san.  I just want see—make sure all right, understand?’

‘Yes, thank you.  No worry.’

‘Lady Toda all right?  Not sick?’

‘Fine now.  Very tired but fine.  Soon dawn, neh?‘

Yabu nodded.  ‘Yes.  Just want make sure all right.  Understand?’

‘Yes.  This afternoon you say ‘plan,’ Yabu-san.  Remember?  Please what secret plan?’

‘No secret, Anjin-san,’ Yabu said, regretting that he had been so open at that time.  ‘You misunderstood.  Say only must have plan . . . very difficult escape Osaka, neh?  Must escape or—’  Yabu drew a knife across his throat.  ‘Understand?’

‘Yes.  But now have pass, neh?  Now safe go out Osaka.  Neh?‘

‘Yes.  Soon leave.  On boat very good.  Soon get men at Nagasaki.  Understand?’

‘Yes.’

Very friendly, Yabu went away.  Blackthorne closed the door after him and walked back to the inner passageway, leaving his inner door ajar.  He passed Chimmoko and went into the other room.  Mariko was propped in futons, appearing more diminutive than ever, more delicate and more beautiful.  Kiri was kneeling on a cushion.  Achiko was curled up asleep to one side.

‘What did he want, Anjin-san?’ Mariko said.

‘Just to see we were all right.’

Mariko translated for Kiri.

‘Kiri says, did you ask him about the ‘plan’?’

‘Yes.  But he shrugged the question off.  Perhaps he changed his mind.  I don’t know.  Perhaps I was mistaken but I thought this afternoon he had something planned, or was planning something.’

‘To betray us?’

‘Of course.  But I don’t know how.’

Mariko smiled at him.  ‘Perhaps you were mistaken.  We’re safe now.’

The young girl, Achiko, mumbled in her sleep and they glanced at her.  She had asked to stay with Mariko, as had old Lady Etsu, who was sleeping soundly in an adjoining room.  The other ladies had left at sunset to go to their own homes.  All had sent formal requests for permission to depart at once.  With the failing light, rumors had rushed through the castle that nearly one hundred and five would also apply tomorrow.  Kiyama had sent for Achiko, his granddaughter-in-law, but she refused to leave Mariko.  At once the daimyo had disowned her and demanded possession of the child.  She had given up her child.  Now the girl was in the midst of a nightmare but it passed and she slept peacefully again.

Mariko looked at Blackthorne.  ‘It’s so wonderful to be at peace, neh?‘

‘Yes,’ he said.  Since she had awakened and found herself alive and not dead, her spirit had clung to his.  For the first hour they had been alone, she lying in his arms.

‘I’m so glad thou art alive, Mariko.  I saw thee dead.’

‘I thought I was.  I still cannot believe Ishido gave in.  Never in twenty lifetimes. . . . Oh, how I love thy arms about me, and thy strength.’

‘I was thinking that this afternoon from the first moment of Yoshinaka’s challenge I saw nothing but death—yours, mine, everyone’s.  I saw into your plan, so long in the making, neh?‘

‘Yes.  Since the day of the earthquake, Anjin-san.  Please forgive me but I didn’t—I didn’t want to frighten you.  I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.  Yes, from that day I knew it was my karma to bring the hostages out of Osaka.  Only I could do that for Lord Toranaga.  And now it’s done.  But at what a cost, neh?  Madonna forgive me.’

Then Kiri had arrived and they had had to sit apart but that had not mattered to either of them.  A smile or a look or word was enough.

Kiri went over to the slit windows.  Out to sea were flecks of light from the inshore fishing boats.  ‘Dawn soon,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Mariko said.  ‘I’ll get up now.’

‘Soon.  Not yet, Mariko-sama,’ Kiri told her.  ‘Please rest.  You need to gather your strength.’

‘I wish Lord Toranaga was here.’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you prepared another message about . . . about our leaving?’

‘Yes, Mariko-sama, another pigeon will leave with the dawn.  Lord Toranaga will hear of your victory today,’ Kiri said.  ‘He’ll be so proud of you.’

‘I’m so glad he was right.’

‘Yes,’ Kiri said.  ‘Please forgive me for doubting you and doubting him.’

‘In my secret heart I doubted him too.  So sorry.’

Kiri turned back to the window and looked out over the city.  Toranaga’s wrong, she wanted to shriek.  We’ll never leave Osaka, however much we pretend.  It’s our karma to stay—his karma to lose.

In the west wing Yabu stopped at the guardroom.  The replacement sentries were ready.  ‘I’m going to make a snap inspection.’

‘Yes, Sire.’

‘The rest of you wait for me here.  You, come with me.’

He went down the main staircase followed by a single guard.  At the foot of the staircase in the main foyer were other guards, and outside was the forecourt and garden.  A cursory look showed all in order.  Then he came back into the fortress, and after a moment, changed direction.  To his guard’s surprise, he went down the steps into the servants’ quarters.  The servants dragged themselves out of sleep, hastily putting their heads onto the flagstones.  Yabu hardly noticed them.  He led the way deeper into the bowels of the fortress, down steps, along little-used arched corridors, the stone sides damp now and mildewed, though well lit.  There were no guards here in the cellars for there was nothing to protect.  Soon they began to climb again, nearing the outer walls.

Yabu halted suddenly.  ‘What was that?’

The Brown samurai stopped, and listened, and died.  Yabu cleaned his sword and pulled the crumpled body into a dark corner, then rushed for a hardly noticed, heavily barred, small iron door set into one of the walls that Ishido’s intermediary had told him about.  He fought back the rusted bolts.  The last one clanged free.  The door swung open.  A draught of cool air from outside, then a spear stabbed for his throat and stopped just in time.  Yabu didn’t move, almost paralyzed.  Ninja stared back at him from the inky darkness beyond the door, weapons poised.

Yabu held up a shaky hand and made a sign as he had been told to do.  ‘I’m Kasigi Yabu,’ he said.

The black-garbed, hooded, almost invisible leader nodded but kept the spear ready for the lunge.  He motioned to Yabu.  Yabu obediently backed off a pace.  Then, very warily, the leader walked into the center of the corridor.  He was tall and heavyset, with wide flat eyes behind his mask.  He saw the dead Brown and with a flick of his wrist he sent his spear flashing into the corpse, then retrieved it with the light chain attached to the end.  Silently he re-coiled the chain, waiting, listening intently for any danger.

At length satisfied, he motioned at the darkness.  Instantly twenty men poured out and rushed for the flight of steps, the long-forgotten back way to the floors above.  These men carried assault tools.  They were armed with chain knives, swords, and shuriken.  And in the center of their black hoods was a red spot.

The leader did not watch them go, but kept his eyes on Yabu and began a slow finger count with his left hand.  ‘One . . . two . . . three . . .’  Yabu felt many men watching him from the passage beyond the door.  He could see no one.

Now the red-spot attackers were going up the stairs two at a time, and at the top of this flight they stopped.  A door barred their path.  They waited a moment then cautiously tried to open it.  It was stuck.  A man with an assault tool, a short steel bar, hooked at one end and chiseled at the other, came forward and jimmied it open.  Beyond was another mildewed passage and they hurried along it silently.  At the next corner they stopped.  The first man peered around, then beckoned the others into another corridor.  At the far end a sliver of light shone through a spyhole in the heavy wooden paneling that covered this secret door.  He put an eye to it.  He could see the breadth of the audience chamber, two Browns and two Grays wearily on sentry duty, guarding the door to the complex of quarters.  He looked around, nodded to the others.  One of the men was still counting with his fingers, timed to the leader’s count two floors below.  All their eyes went to the count.

Below in the cellar, the leader’s fingers still continued in tempo, ticking off the moments, his eyes never wavering from Yabu.  Yabu was watching and waiting, the smell of his own fear-sweat dank in his nostrils.  The fingers stopped and the leader’s fist closed up sharply.  He pointed down the corridor.  Yabu nodded and turned and went back the way he had come, walking slowly.  Behind him the inexorable count began again.  ‘One . . . two . . . three . . .’

Yabu knew the terrible risk he was taking but he had had no alternative and he cursed Mariko once more for forcing him onto Ishido’s side.  Part of his bargain was that he had to open this secret door.

‘What’s behind the door?’ he had asked supiciously.

‘Friends.  This is the sign and the password is to say your name.’

‘Then they kill me, neh?‘

‘No.  You’re too valuable, Yabu-san.  You’ve got to make sure the infiltration is covered. . . .’

He had agreed but he had never bargained for ninja, the hated and feared semilegendary mercenaries who owed allegiance only to their secret, closely knit family units, who handed down their secrets only to blood kin—how to swim vast distances under water and scale almost smooth walls, how to make themselves invisible and stand for a day and a night without moving, and how to kill with their hands or feet or any and all weapons including poison, fire, and explosives.  To ninja, violent death for pay was their only purpose in life.

Yabu managed to keep his pace measured as he walked away from the ninja leader along the corridor, his chest still hurting from the shock that the attack force was ninja and not ronin.  Ishido must be mad, he told himself, all his senses teetering, expecting a spear or arrow or garrote any moment.  Now he was almost at the corner.  Then he turned it and, safe once more, he took to his heels and bounded up the stairs, three at a time.  At the top, he raced down the arched corridor, then turned the corner heading toward the servants’ quarters.

The leader’s fingers still ticked off the moments, then the count stopped.  He made a more urgent sign to the darkness, and rushed after Yabu.  Twenty ninja followed him from the darkness and another fifteen took up defensive positions at both ends of the corridor to guard this escape route that led through a maze of forgotten cellars and passages honeycombing the castle to one of Ishido’s secret bolt holes under the moat, thence to the city.

Yabu was running fast now and he stumbled in the passageway, just managing to keep his footing, and burst through the servants’ quarters, scattering pots and pans and gourds and casks.

‘Ninjaaaaaa!‘ he bellowed, which was not part of his agreement, but his own ruse to protect himself should he be betrayed.  Hysterically the men and women scattered and took up the shout and tried to vanish under benches and tables as he raced across and out the other side, up more steps into one of the main corridors to meet the first of the Browns’ guards, who already had out their swords.

‘Sound the alarm!’ Yabu shouted.  ‘Ninja—there are ninja among the servants!’

One samurai fled for the main staircase, the second rushed forward bravely to stand alone at the top of the winding steps that led below, sword raised.  Seeing him, the servants came to a halt, then, moaning with terror, blindly huddled into the stones, their arms over their heads.  Yabu ran on toward the main doorway and through it to stand on the steps.  ‘Sound the alarm!  We’re under attack!’ he shouted as he had agreed to do, to signal the diversion outside which would cover the main attack through the secret door into the audience chamber, to kidnap Mariko and hurry her away before anyone was wiser.

Samurai on the gates and in the forecourt whirled around, not knowing where to guard, and at that moment the raiders in the garden swarmed out of their hiding places and engulfed the Browns outside.  Yabu retreated into the foyer as other Browns came rushing down from the guardroom above to support the men outside.

A captain raced up to him.  ‘What’s going on?’

‘Ninja—outside and among the servants.  Where’s Sumiyori?’

‘I don’t know—in his room.’

Yabu leapt for the stairs as other men poured down.  At that moment the first of the ninja from the cellars dashed past the servants to the attack.  Barbed shuriken disposed of the lone defender, spears killed the servants.  Then this force of raiders was in the main corridor, creating a violent shouting diversion, the milling frantic Browns not knowing where the next attack would spring from.

On the top floor the waiting ninja had ripped open their doors at the first alarm and rushed the last of the Browns who were hurrying below, killing them.  With poison darts and shuriken, the ninja pressed their onslaught.  The Browns were quickly overwhelmed, and the attackers jumped over the corpses to reach the main corridor on the floor below.  A furious charge of Brown reinforcements was repulsed by the ninja, who whirled their weighted chains and cast them at the samurai, either strangling them or entangling their swords to make it easier to impale them with the double-edged knife.  Shuriken flashed through the air and the Browns here were decimated.  A few ninja were cut down but they crawled on like rabid animals and stopped attacking only when death took them completely.

In the garden the first rush of the defending reinforcements was easily thwarted as Browns poured from the main doorway.  But another wave of Browns courageously mounted a second charge and swept the invaders back by sheer force of numbers.  At a shouted order the raiders retreated, their jet-black clothes making them difficult targets.  Exultantly the Browns rushed after them, into ambush, and were slaughtered.

The red-spot attackers were still lying in wait outside the audience room, their leader’s eye to the spyhole.  He could see the anxious Browns and Blackthorne’s Grays, who were guarding the fortified door to the corridor, listening anxiously to the mounting holocaust below.  The door opened and other guards, Browns and Grays, crowded the opening and then, no longer able to stand the waiting, officers of both groups ordered all their men out of the audience room to take up defensive positions at the far end of the corridor.  Now the way was clear, the door of the inner corridor open, only the captain of Grays beside it, and he also was leaving.  The red-spot leader saw a woman hurry up to the threshold, the tall barbarian with her, and he recognized his prey, other women collecting behind them.

Impatient to complete the mission and so relieve the pressure on his clansmen below, and whipped by his killing lust, the red-spot leader gave the signal and burst through his door an instant too soon.

Blackthorne saw him coming and automatically drew his pistol from under his kimono and fired.  The back of the leader’s head disappeared, momentarily stopping the charge.  Simultaneously, the captain of Grays rushed back and attacked with a mindless ferocity and cut down one ninja.  Then the pack fell on the Gray and he died but these few seconds gave Blackthorne enough time to pull Mariko to safety and slam the door.  Frantically he grabbed the iron bar and slid it into place just as ninja hurled themselves against it and others fanned out to hold the main doorway.

‘Christ Jesus!  What’s go—’

‘Ninjaaaaaa!‘  Mariko shouted as Kiri and Lady Sazuko and Lady Etsu and Chimmoko and Achiko and the other maids poured hysterically from their rooms, blows hammering on the door.

‘Quick, this way!’  Kiri screamed over the uproar and fled into the interior.

The women followed, helter-skelter, two of them helping old Lady Etsu.  Blackthorne saw the door rocking under the furious blows of the assault jimmies.  Now the wood was splintering.  Blackthorne ran back into his room for his powder horn and swords.

In the audience room the ninja had already disposed of the six Browns and Grays at the main outer door and had overwhelmed the rest in the corridor beyond.  But they had lost two dead, and two were wounded before the fight was complete, the outer doors closed and barred, and this whole section secure.

‘Hurry up,’ the new red-spot leader snarled.  The men with the crowbars needed no urging as they ripped at the door.  For a moment the leader stood over the corpse of his brother, then kicked it furiously, knowing his brother’s impatience had destroyed their surprise attack.  He rejoined his men, who circled the door.

In the corridor Blackthorne was reloading rapidly, the door shrieking under the blows.  First the powder, tamp it carefully . . . one of the door panels cracked . . . next the paper plug to hold the charge tight and next the lead ball and another plug . . . one of the door hinges snapped and the tip of the jimmy came through . . . next, blow the dust carefully away from the flint. . . .

‘Anjin-san!’ Mariko cried out from somewhere in the inner rooms.  ‘Hurry!’

But Blackthorne paid no attention.  He walked up to the door and put the nozzle to a splintered crack, stomach high, and pulled the trigger.  From the other side of the door there was a scream and the assault on the door ceased.  He retreated and began to reload.  First powder, tamp it carefully . . . again the whole door shook as men tore at it with shoulders and raging fists and feet and weapons . . . next the holding paper and next the ball and next another paper . . . the door bellowed and shuddered and one of the bolts sprang away and clattered to the floor. . . .

Kiri was hurrying down an inner passageway, gasping for breath, the others half-dragging Lady Etsu with them, Sazuko crying, ‘What’s the point there’s nowhere to go. . . .’ but Kiri ran on, stumbling into another room and across it and she pulled a section of the shoji wall aside.  A hidden iron-fortified door was set into the stone wall beyond.  She pulled it open.  The hinges were well oiled.

‘This . . . this is my Master’s sec—secret haven,’ she panted and started to go inside but stopped.  ‘Where’s Mariko?’

Chimmoko turned and rushed back.

In the first corridor Blackthorne blew the dust carefully away from the flint and walked forward again.  The door was near collapsing but still offered cover.  Again he pulled the trigger.  Again a scream and a moment’s respite, then the blows commenced, another bolt flew off and the whole door teetered.  He began to reload.

‘Anjin-san!’  Mariko was there at the far end beckoning him frantically so he snatched up his weapons and rushed toward her.  She turned and fled, guiding him.  The door shattered and the ninja tore after them.

Mariko was running fast, Blackthorne on her heels.  She sped across a room, tripped over her skirts and fell.  He grabbed her up and together they bolted across another room.  Chimmoko ran up to them.  ‘Hurry!’ she shrieked, waiting for them to pass.  She followed for a moment, then, unnoticed, she turned back and stood in the path, her knife out.

Ninja came rushing into the room.  Chimmoko hurled herself, knife outstretched, at the first man.  He parried the blow and flung her aside like a toy, charging after Blackthorne and Mariko.  The last man broke Chimmoko’s neck with his foot and rushed on.

Mariko was running fast but not fast enough, her skirts inhibiting her, Blackthorne trying to help.  They crossed a room, then turned right, into another, and he saw the doorway, Kiri and Sazuko waiting there terrified, Achiko and maids succoring the old women in the room behind them.  He shoved Mariko to safety.  Then he turned at bay, his uncharged pistol in one hand, sword in the other, expecting Chimmoko.  When she didn’t appear at once, he began to go back but heard the approaching charge of the ninja.  He stopped and leaped backward into the room as the first ninja appeared.  He slammed the door, and spears and shuriken screeched off the iron.  Again he barely had time to shove the bolts home before the attackers hurtled against it.

Numbly he thanked God for their escape and then, when he saw the strength of the door and knew that jimmies could not break it easily and that they were safe for the moment, he thanked God again.  Trying to catch his breath, he looked around.  Mariko was on her knees gulping for air.  There were six maids, Achiko, Kiri and Sazuko, and the old lady, who lay gray-faced, almost unconscious.  The room was small and stone-walled and another side door let out onto a small battlement veranda.  He groped over to a window and looked out.  This corner abutment overhung the avenue and forecourt, and he could hear sounds of the battle wafting up from below, screams and shouts and a few hysterical battle cries.  Several Grays and unattached samurai were already beginning to collect in the avenue and on the opposite battlements.  The gates below were locked against them and held by the ninja.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Blackthorne said, his chest aching.

No one answered him and he went back and knelt beside Mariko and shook her gently.  ‘What’s going on?’  But she could not answer yet.

Yabu was running down a wide corridor in the west wing toward his sleeping quarters.  He turned a corner and skidded to a stop.  Ahead a large number of samurai were being pressed back by a ferocious counterattack of raiders who had rushed down from the top floor.

‘What’s going on?’ Yabu shouted over the din, for no raiders were supposed to be here, only below.

‘They’re all over us,’ a samurai panted.  ‘These came from above. . . . ‘

Yabu cursed, realizing he had been duped and not told the whole of the attack plan.  ‘Where’s Sumiyori?’

‘He must be dead.  They’ve overwhelmed that section, Sire.  You were lucky to escape yourself.  They must have struck shortly after you left.  What are ninja attacking for?’

A flurry of shouts distracted them.  At the far end, Browns launched another counterattack around a corner, covering samurai who fought with spears.  The spearmen drove the ninja back, and the Browns charged in pursuit.  But a cloud of shuriken enveloped this wave and soon they were screaming and dying, blocking the passageway, the poison convulsing them.  Momentarily the rest of the Browns retreated out of range to regroup.

Yabu, unendangered, shouted, ‘Get bowmen!’  Men rushed off to obey.

‘What’s the attack all about?  Why are they in force?’ the samurai asked again, blood streaking his face from a cheek wound.  Normally the detested ninja attacked singly or in small groups, to vanish as quickly as they appeared once their mission was accomplished.

‘I don’t know,’ Yabu said, this whole section of the castle now in uproar, the Browns still uncoordinated, still off-balance from the terrifying swiftness of the onslaught.

‘If—if Toranaga-sama were here I could understand Ishido ordering a sudden attack but—but why now?’ the samurai said.  ‘There’s no one or noth—’  He stopped as the realization struck him.  ‘Lady Toda!’

Yabu tried to override him, but the man bellowed, ‘They’re after her, Yabu-san!  They must be after Lady Toda!’  He led a rush for the east wing.  Yabu hesitated, then followed.

To get to the east wing they had to cross the central landing that the ninja now held in strength.  Samurai dead were everywhere.  Goaded by the knowledge that their revered leader was in danger, the first impetuous charge broke through the cordon.  But these men were cut down swiftly.  Now more of their comrades had taken up the shouts and the news spread rapidly and the Browns redoubled their efforts.  Yabu rushed up to direct the fight, staying in safety as much as he dared.  A ninja ripped open his haversack and lit a fused gourd from a wall flare and hurled it over the Browns.  It shattered against a wall and exploded, scattering fire and smoke, and at once this ninja led a counterattack that threw the Browns into a burning, disordered rout.  Under cover of the smoke ninja reinforcements poured up from the floor below.

‘Retreat and regroup!’ Yabu shouted in one of the corridors leading off the main landing, wanting to delay as much as he dared, presuming that Mariko was already captured and being carried to the cellar escape below, expecting at any moment the overdue clarion call that signaled success and ordered all ninja to break off the attack and retreat.  Then a force of Browns from above hurtled in a suicidal attack from a staircase and broke the cordon.  They died but others also disobeyed Yabu and charged.  More bombs were thrown, setting fire to the wall hangings.  Flames began to lick the walls, sparks ignited the tatamis.  A sudden gush of fire trapped one of the ninja, turning him into a screaming human torch.  Then a samurai’s kimono caught and he threw himself onto another ninja and they burned together.  A blazing samurai was using his sword like a battle-ax to cut a way through the ambushers.  Ten samurai followed and, though two died in their tracks and three fell mortally wounded, the rest broke out and tore for the east wing.  Soon another ten followed.  Yabu led the next charge safely as the remaining ninja made an orderly retreat to the ground floor and their escape route below.  The battle for possession of the cul-de-sac in the east wing began.

In the small room they were staring at the door.  They could hear the attackers scraping at the hinges and at the floor.  Then there was a sudden hammering and a harsh, muffled voice from outside.

Two of the maids began to sob.

‘What did he say?’ Blackthorne asked.

Mariko licked her dry lips.  ‘He—he said, to open the door and surrender or he’d—he’d blow it up.’

‘Can they do that, Mariko-san?’

‘I don’t know.  They . . . they can use gunpowder, of course, and—’  Mariko’s hand went to her sash but came out empty.  ‘Where’s my knife?’

All the women went for their daggers.  Kiri had none.  Sazuko none.  Nor Achiko or Lady Etsu.  Blackthorne had armed his pistol and had his long sword.  The short sword had fallen during his frantic dash for safety.

The muffled voice became angrier and more demanding, and all eyes in the room looked at Blackthorne.  But Mariko knew she was betrayed and her time had come.

‘He said, if we open the door and surrender, everyone will go free except you.’  Mariko brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.  ‘He said they want you as a hostage, Anjin-san.  That’s all they want. . . .’

Blackthorne walked forward to open the door, but Mariko stood pathetically in his way.

‘No, Anjin-san, it’s a trick,’ she said.  ‘So sorry, they don’t want you, they want me!  Don’t believe them, I don’t believe them.’

He smiled at her and touched her briefly and reached for one of the bolts.

‘It’s not you, it’s me—it’s a trick!  I swear it!  Don’t believe them, please,’ she said, and grabbed his sword.  It was half out of its scabbard before he realized what she was doing and had caught her hand.

‘No!’ he ordered.  ‘Stop it!’

‘Don’t give me into their hands!  I’ve no knife!  Please, Anjin-san!’  She tried to fight out of his grasp but he lifted her out of the way and put his hand on the top bolt.  ‘Dozo,’ he said to the others as Mariko desperately tried to stop him.  Achiko came forward, pleading with her, and Mariko tried to push her away and cried out, ‘Please, Anjin-san, it’s a trick—for the love of God!’

His hand jerked the top bolt open.

‘They want me alive,’ Mariko shouted wildly.  ‘Don’t you see?  To capture me, don’t you see?  They want me alive and then it’s all for nothing—tomorrow Toranaga’s got to cross the border—I beg you, it’s a trick, before God. . . .’

Achiko had her arms around Mariko, pleading with her, pulling her away, and she motioned him to open the door.  ‘Isogi, isogi, Anjin-san. . . .

Blackthorne opened the central bolt.

‘For the love of God, don’t make all the dying useless!  Help me!  Remember your vow!’

Now the reality of what she was saying reached him, and in panic he shoved home the bolts.  ‘Why should—’

A ferocious pounding on the door interrupted him, iron clanging on iron, then the voice began, a short violent crescendo.  All sound outside ceased.  The women fled for the far wall and cowered against it.

‘Get away from the door,’ Mariko shouted, rushing after them.  ‘He’s going to explode the door!’

‘Delay him, Mariko-san,’ Blackthorne said and leaped for the side door that led to the battlements.  ‘Our men’ll be here soon.  Work the bolts, say they’re stuck—anything.’  He strained at the top bolt on the side door but it was rusted tight.  Obediently Mariko ran to the door and pretended feeble attempts to shift the central bolt, pleading with the ninja outside.  Then she began to rattle the lower bolt.  Again the voice more insistent, and Mariko redoubled her weeping pleas.

Blackthorne smashed the butt of his hand against the top catch again and again but it would not shift.  The women watched helplessly.  Finally this bolt clanged open noisily.  Mariko tried to cover the sound and Blackthorne attacked the final bolt.  His hands were raw and bloody now.  The ninja leader outside renewed his fiery warning.  In desperation Blackthorne grabbed his sword and used the haft as a cudgel, careless of the noise now.  Mariko drowned the sounds as best she could.  The bolt seemed welded shut.

Outside the door, the red-spot leader was almost mad with rage.  This secret refuge was totally unexpected.  His orders from the clan leader were to capture Toda Mariko alive, make sure she was weaponless, and hand her over to Grays who were waiting at the end of the tunnel from the cellars.  He knew that time was running out.  He could hear the raging battle in the corridor, outside the audience room, and knew disgustedly that they would have been safe below, their mission accomplished, but for this secret rat hole and his overanxious fool of a brother who had begun the rush prematurely.

Karma to have such a brother!

He held a lighted candle in his hand and he had laid a trail of powder to the small kegs they had brought in their haversacks to blow up the secret entrance to the cellars to secure their retreat.  But he was in a dilemma.  To blow the door was the only way to get through.  But the Toda woman was just on the other side of the door and the explosion would surely kill everyone inside and spoil his mission, making all their losses futile.

Footsteps raced toward him.  It was one of his own men.  ‘Be quick!’ the man whispered.  ‘We can’t hold them off much longer!’  He raced away.

The red-spot leader decided.  He waved his men to cover and shouted a warning through the door.  ‘Get away!  I’m blowing the door!’  He put the candle to the trail and jumped to safety.  The powder spluttered, caught, and snaked for the kegs.

Blackthorne yanked the side door open.  Sweet night air rushed in.  The women poured onto the veranda.  Old Lady Etsu fell but he caught her and pushed her through, whirled for Mariko, but she had pressed back against the iron and called out firmly, ‘I, Toda Mariko, protest this shameful attack and by my death—’

He lunged for her but the explosion blew him aside as the door wrenched loose from its hinges and blasted into the room and shrieked off a far wall.  The detonation knocked Kiri and the others off their feet outside on the battlement, but they were mostly unhurt.  Smoke gushed into the room, the ninja following instantly.  The buckled iron door came to rest in a corner.

The red-spot leader was on his knees beside Mariko as others fanned out protectively.  He saw at once that she was broken and dying fast.  Karma, he thought and jumped to his feet again.  Blackthorne was lying stunned, a trickle of blood seeping from his ears and nose, trying to grope back into life.  His pistol, bent and useless, was in a corner.

The red-spot leader went forward a pace and stopped.  Achiko moved into the doorway.

The ninja looked at her, recognizing her.  Then he stared down at Blackthorne, despising him for the gun and the cowardice in shooting blindly through the door, killing one of his men and wounding another.  He looked back at Achiko and reached for his knife.  She charged blindly.  His knife took her in the left breast.  She was dead as she crumpled and he went forward without anger and withdrew his knife from the twitching body, fulfilling the last part of his orders from above—he presumed from Ishido, though it could never be proved— that if they failed and the Lady Toda managed to kill herself, he was to leave her untouched and not take her head; he was to protect the barbarian and leave all the other women unharmed, except for Kiyama Achiko.  He did not know why he had been ordered to kill her, but it had been ordered and paid for, so she was dead.

He signaled the retreat.  One of his men put a curved horn to his lips and blew a strident call that echoed through the castle and through the night.  The leader made a last check on Mariko.  A last check on the girl.  And a last check on the barbarian he wanted dead so much.  Then he turned on his heel and led the retreat through the rooms and passageways into the audience room.  Ninja defending the main door way waited till all the red-spot raiders were through the escape route, then they hurled more smoke and fire bombs into the corridor and rushed for safety.  The leader of the red-spots covered them.  He waited until all were safe, then scattered handfuls of hardly noticeable deadly caltrops on the floor—small, spiked metal balls tipped with poison.  He fled as Browns burst through the smoke into the audience room.  Some charged after him and another phalanx hurtled for the corridor.  His pursuers screamed as the caltrop needles ripped into the soles of their feet and they began to die.

In the small room, the only sound was Blackthorne’s lungs struggling for air.  On the battlement Kiri lurched to her feet, her kimono torn and her hands and arms raw with abrasions.  She stumbled back and saw Achiko and cried out, then reeled for Mariko and sank to her knees beside her.  Another explosion somewhere in the castle rocked the dust a fraction, and there were more screams and distant shouts of ‘Fire.’  Smoke billowed into the room.  Sazuko and some of the maids got to their feet.  Sazuko was bruised about the face and shoulders and her wrist was broken.  She saw Achiko, eyes and mouth open in death terror, and she whimpered.

Numbly, Kiri looked across at her and motioned at Blackthorne.  The young girl stumbled toward Kiri and saw Mariko.  She began to cry.  Then she got control of herself and went back to Blackthorne and tried to help him up.  Maids rushed to assist her.  He held onto them and fought to his feet, then swayed and fell, coughing and retching, the blood still oozing from his ears.  Browns burst into the room.  They looked around, aghast.

Kiri stayed on her knees beside Mariko.  A samurai lifted her up.  Others crowded around.  They parted as Yabu came into the room, his face ashen.  When he saw Blackthorne was still alive, much of his anxiety left him.

‘Get a doctor!  Quick!’ he ordered and knelt beside Mariko.  She was still alive, but fading rapidly.  Her face was hardly touched but her body was terribly mutilated.  Yabu ripped off his kimono and covered her to the neck.

‘Hurry the doctor,’ he rasped, then went over to Blackthorne.  He helped him sit against the wall.

‘Anjin-san!  Anjin-san!’

Blackthorne was still in shock, his ears ringing, eyes hardly seeing, his face a mass of bruises and powder burns.  Then his eyes cleared and he saw Yabu, the image twisting drunkenly, the smell of gunsmoke choking him and he didn’t know where he was or who he was, only that he was aboard ship in battle and his ship was hurt and needed him.  Then he saw Mariko and he remembered.

He lurched up, Yabu helping him, and tottered over to her.

She seemed at peace, sleeping.  He knelt heavily and moved the kimono aside.  Then he put it back again.  Her pulse was almost imperceptible.  Then it ceased.

He stayed looking at her, swaying, almost falling, then a doctor was there and the doctor shook his head and said something but Blackthorne could not hear or understand.  He only knew that death had come to her, and that he too was dead.

He made the sign of the cross over her and said the sacred Latin words that were necessary to bless her and he prayed for her though no sound came from his mouth.  The others watched him.  When he had done what he had to do, he fought to his feet again and stood upright.  Then his head seemed to burst with red and purple light and he collapsed.  Kind hands caught him and helped him to the floor and let him rest.

‘Is he dead?’ Yabu asked.

‘Almost.  I don’t know about his ears, Yabu-sama,’ the doctor said.  ‘He may be bleeding inside.’

A samurai said nervously, ‘We’d better hurry, get them out of here.  The fire may spread and we’ll be trapped.’

‘Yes,’ Yabu said.  Another samurai called him urgently from the battlements and he went outside.

Old Lady Etsu was lying against the battlement, cradled by her maid, her face gray, eyes rheumy.  She peered up at Yabu, focusing with difficulty.  ‘Kasigi Yabu-san?’

‘Yes, Lady.’

‘Are you senior officer here?’

‘Yes, Lady.’

The old woman said to the maid.  ‘Please help me up.’

‘But you should wait, the doc—’

‘Help me up!’

Samurai on the battlement veranda watched her stand, supported by the maid.  ‘Listen,’ she said, her voice hoarse and frail in the silence.  ‘I, Maeda Etsu, wife of Maeda Arinosi, Lord of Nagato, Iwami, and Aki, I attest that Toda Mariko-sama cast away her life to save herself from dishonorable capture by these hideous and shameful men.  I attest that . . . that Kiyama Achiko chose to attack the ninja, casting away her life rather than risk the dishonor of being captured . . . that but for the barbarian samurai’s bravery Lady Toda would have been captured and dishonored, and all of us, and we who are alive owe him gratitude, and also our Lords owe him gratitude for protecting us from that shame. . . . I accuse the Lord General Ishido of mounting this dishonorable attack . . . and of betraying the Heir and the Lady Ochiba . . .’  The old lady wavered and almost fell, and the maid sobbed and held her more strongly.  ‘And . . . and Lord Ishido has betrayed them and the Council of Regents.  I ask you all to bear witness that I can no longer live with this shame. . . .’

‘No—no mistress,’ the maid wept, ‘I won’t let you—’

‘Go away!  Kasigi Yabu-san, please help me.  Go away, woman!’

Yabu took Lady Etsu’s weight, which was negligible, and ordered the maid away.  She obeyed.

Lady Etsu was in great pain and breathing heavily.  ‘I attest to the truth of this by my own death,’ she said in a small voice and looked up at Yabu.  ‘I would be honored if . . . if you would be my second.  Please help me onto the battlements.’

‘No, Lady.  There’s no need to die.’

She turned her face away from the others and whispered to him, ‘I’m dying already, Yabu-sama.  I’m bleeding from inside—something’s broken inside—the explosion. . . . Help me to do my duty. . . . I’m old and useless and pain’s been my bedfellow for twenty years.  Let my death also help our Master, neh?‘  There was a glint in the old eyes.  ‘Neh?‘

Gently he lifted her and stood proudly beside her on the abutment, the forecourt far below.  He helped her to stand.  Everyone bowed to her.

‘I have told the truth.  I attest to it by my death,’ she said, standing alone, her voice quavering.  Then she closed her eyes thankfully and let herself fall forward to welcome death.